What does Manafort know?

The Mueller investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 elections has taken an interesting turn as former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort has made a plea deal. He will be cooperating with the investigation now.

Manafort, in a trial set to begin Sept. 24, had been facing seven counts of foreign lobbying violations and witness tampering in federal court in Washington.

According to Politico, the plea deal includes a 10-year-cap for how long Manafort will be in prison. It also includes allowing Manafort to serve his time for both trials concurrently.

Considering his position with the Trump campaign, he probably knows a lot about what went down regarding Russians. He was only there for a short time, but it was plenty of time to collude if collusion indeed occurred.

Will he spill the beans on a massive conspiracy between the campaign and Russia? Will he take down some members of the campaign but protect the President himself? We probably won’t know for several weeks.

Legislators tell Allen West: Next version of First Step Act will cut loopholes

Last week, a handful of conservatives, including Lt. Col. Allen West and Conservative Review’s Daniel Horowitz, went after the bipartisan First Step Act, a criminal justice reform bill that has the backing of the President and many conservative lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Our complaint: why would the GOP support a bill that releases violent criminals and illegal immigrants?

According to legislative proponents of the bill, protections and benefits for both of these groups of felons have been eliminated in the next version of the bill that will reach the Senate floor. They reached out to West over the weekend to let them know they heard the concerns and are addressing them.

The First Step Act is supported by many conservatives and law enforcement groups, including the Fraternal Order of Police, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and the National District Attorneys Association. There are other proposals offered by those on the far left under the same banner of “criminal justice reform” that would release people from prison without regard to the danger they pose, including illegal immigrants and serious violent offenders. We must remember that there are some folks who are, well, as the ol’ folks would say, “just bad.” Additionally, some left-wing professors even propose abolishing all prisons partly based on their notion that the system is racist in nature. Hmm, I tend to believe that skin color or race has nothing to do with a person deciding to break the law. I just do not want us to go down the path of having criminals believe that there are no consequences, ramifications, for their actions and behaviors.

The legislators echoed our concerns and said the version that is currently available doesn’t reflect the changes that cut the loopholes. They say it will be impossible for these two groups – serious violent offenders and criminal illegal immigrants – to get the benefits of the bill. Many felons will be released early. Future felons will be given lighter sentences. That makes sense for many, but by no means should anyone in either of the two most dangerous groups receive sentence reductions, according to the letter to West.

My Take

Call me cynical, but lately I’ve changed my general rules regarding promises of politicians. It used to echo President Reagan’s stance on nuclear disarmament: “Trust but verify.” I now have to go with a more adversarial stance on political promises: “Show me proof, then we’ll talk.”

When the legislation is made available to the public, many will take a close look at it. I’ll personally be checking to see if there are any loopholes that would put violent offenders or criminal illegal immigrants back on the street sooner. If so, it’s a no-go for me.

Related

Chipotle knew Masud Omar Ali bragged about dining and dashing before they fired their manager

Some are cheering on Chipotle for doing the right thing by considering rehiring the manager they fired following a viral video showing her asking African-American patrons to pay up front before placing their order. Evidence has emerged since the firing that the poster of the viral video made a habit of “dining and dashing” at Chipotle and other restaurants, apparently vindicating the manager for her decision to protect the store from theft.

Our actions were based on the facts known to us immediately after the incident. We now have additional information which needs to be investigated further. We want to do the right thing, so after further investigation, we’ll re-train and re-hire if the facts warrant it.

Here’s the problem. According to Matt Palumbo who contacted Chipotle about the incident, they were aware of the history of the customer before they fired their manager.

This is an absolute lie. I emailed your media relations dept. and she claims you were aware of the tweets (where the dude admitted to dine and dashing) at the time of the firing. pic.twitter.com/mZPIDTC9wn

It ended up getting over 30,000 retweets, 72,000 likes, 5,500 comments, and an astounding 5.5 million views. Many of the comments immediately following the post claimed racism on the part of the manager and Chipotle in general because Mr. Ali is African American. His racially charged Tweet made it seem like all of this was driven by racism.

As it turned out, his own Twitter feed revealed something that he regularly practiced, “dining and dashing.” This is where someone orders food from a restaurant, eats the food, then leaves without paying for it.

Ali seemed quite proud of his thefts and very satisfied that he was able to get someone fired for trying to stop his criminal activities.

Now that the “victims” have been exposed as the actual criminals, people on both sides of the aisle are speaking out. Some noted that falsely calling out racism masks real racism. Others talked about the hypocrisy of getting someone fired for trying to stop theft in her store.

This video by self-proclaimed liberal An0maly calls for truth even if it doesn’t fit the narrative of mainstream media, social media, or corporate America.

It’s sad that the truth wasn’t enough to keep Chipotle from firing their manager over false racism. The backlash is what made them act. Even if they rehire her, Chipotle still looks terrible for embracing political correctness in the first place.

Related

Intellectual ammunition, part 3: Armed with logic and a mistake by SCOTUS

Is nuclear annihilation less of a threat than purchasing a lower parts kit?

In the third part of a multipart series, Gardner Goldsmith @gardgoldsmith of MRCTV addresses the issues surrounding Liberty Control, destroying some of the prevalent mythologies in the process.

Which is more intimidating: purchasing an inanimate object or the threat of gun confiscation?

In the beginning of the video, he asks the very pertinent question:

“Who engages in threats of gun violence, the civilian who owns, or attempts to own, a firearm, or the civilian or politician intent on passing ‘gun control’ statutes?”

Which is quite an interesting point in light of the comments from Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) who wants the government to make gun owners an offer they can’t refuse on their freedom. Rejecting said offer could see them and millions of other die in a thermonuclear style gun confiscation.

That threat being just the latest of the long list of over 70 instances of Leftists demanding gun confiscation.Note that number could easily be doubled or tripled if one were to account for the number of times those demands were syndicated or excerpted in other publications.

The video details the point that it is the people wanting to impose controls on freedom that are threatening violence – up to and including nuclear genocide. But perhaps if one if of the Liberty grabber set on the Left it’s possible that someone having a scary looking rifle is far more of an issue than the wiping out of an area via nuclear incineration with fallout contaminating everything down wind.

The illogic of so-called ‘Gun-free’ zones.

Further on he addresses question of whether the passage of more and more restrictions on freedom and setting up ‘gun-free’ zones keep people safe? Consider the scenario he proposes in how a mass murderer might select is his target:

And what of the idea that, practically, passing gun statutes will make areas safer? In Part One of this series, we looked at the real-world numbers on that question, but here is a logical argument to pose to gun-grabbers.

Suppose you are in a paintball game. You have a paintball gun, and you will win $10,000 if you enter one of three houses and, in five minutes, hit ten people with pellets. If you get hit by a pellet, you will have to pay $200,000… There are forty people in each house. In House One, you know that there is no one with a paintball gun. In House Two, you know that there are a few people with paintball guns, and in House Three, you know that there are many, many people with paintball guns.

Which house would you choose?

The answer is obvious. Let’s not be foolish about pretending that we would choose anything other than House One.

The logic of self-protection through firearm possession and use is irrefutable. The statistics of it are clear. The history of despots disarming citizens prior to destroying their lives is also clear, as is the history of what the Founders thought when they wrote the Second Amendment.